Donald J. Trump, in Warren, Mich., on Friday, held up one of the more personal taunting topics broached, his hand size, in the latest Republican debate.Credit Richard Perry/The New York Times

So, just why did Donald J. Trump decide to delve into the matter of his anatomy on the debate stage Thursday night?

It was, he said, an issue of respect.

Speaking to a crowd in Warren, Mich., on Friday, Mr. Trump recounted how Senator Marco Rubio of Florida had mocked him for having small hands — implying that another body part might be similarly small. And in Thursday’s debate, Mr. Trump took the unusual step of clarifying the issue, bragging, “I guarantee you, there’s no problem.”

After first defending his hands — “Those hands can hit a golf ball 285 yards,” Mr. Trump crowed Friday — the real estate billionaire said that at first he wasn’t sure how to handle the broadside.

“I’ve never been criticized about the size of my hands before,” he said (which is factually questionable.) “I’m saying to myself: ‘What’s going on here? So what do I do?’ For the rest of my life I have the curse that I have little hands, little hands.”

He said he asked his aides: “What do I do? Do I stand back and just take incoming and act presidential?”

But then, he continued, he realized that his supporters love him because he stands up for himself, even if it isn’t always typical presidential behavior — and that’s when he decided to clarify on the debate stage that his anatomy is just fine, thank you.

“That’s the problem with our country,” he said. “Our country takes abuse from everybody and we don’t do anything about it.”

Mr. Trump, increasingly worried about a gender gap and his performance among female voters in a possible general election matchup with Hillary Clinton, also turned his fire on the former secretary of state, who holds a growing lead in the Democratic race in delegates.

Returning to a line of attack he’d used earlier but since shied away from, Mr. Trump accused Mrs. Clinton of enabling the sexual exploits of her husband, Bill Clinton. Mr. Trump recounted the moment earlier in the cycle when Mrs. Clinton had accused him of being sexist.

“And I said, Hillary is an enabler, right? I said she’s an enabler, she enabled him,” Mr. Trump said. “So I said that Hillary’s an enabler and that was the end of it. But she crashed, remember that, she totally crashed.”

But, Mr. Trump added, as Mrs. Clinton slipped in the polls, it was Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, her Democratic opponent, who got the credit, not him.

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